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Updated: May 1, 2025
Behind them tramped the women from Khinjan, carrying their babies and their husbands loads; and behind them again were the other women, who had been told they would be overtaken in the Khyber, but who had actually had to run themselves raw-footed in order to catch up.
It seemed to King that he scented climax. So did his near-fifty and their thirty friends. He chose to take the arrival of the blind men as a hint from Providence and to "go it blind" on the strength of what he had hoped might happen. Also he chose in that instant to force the mullah's hand, on the principle that hurried buffaloes will blunder. "To Khinjan!" he shouted to the nearest man.
It was a cul-de-sac, and at the end of it, just as on his previous visit, there stood a stone mosque, whose roof leaned back at a steep angle against the mountain-side. The fact that it was a mosque, and that it was the only building used as such in Khinjan, had saved it from being leveled to the ground by the last British expedition.
So a man may rest in temporary peace even on the road to Khinjan, although Khinjan and peace have nothing whatever in common. It was at such a shrine, surrounded by tattered rags tied to sticks, that fluttered in the wind three or four thousand feet above Khyber level, that King drew Ismail into conversation, and deftly forced on him the role of questioner.
"Be assured, however, that not to betray me to him is to leave me free to serve my government and well able to do so. "I invite you to return to India with me, bearing news that the mullah Muhammad Anim and his men are bottled in Khinjan Caves, and to plan with me to that end.
"He threatens as a preliminary to blockade Khinjan Caves, unless the answer to this prove favorable, letting none enter, but calling his own men out to join him. This would suit the Indian government, because while the 'Hills' fight among themselves they can not raid India, and while he blockades Khinjan Caves there will be time to move against him.
He cursed, and there was pity in King's voice when he spoke next. "Do they hurt thee?" "Aye, like the devil! Khinjan is a place of plagues!" "I could heal them," King said, passing on, and the man stared hard.
"Now," he said, gathering the reins and swinging into the saddle, "who knows the way to Khinjan?" "Which of us does not!" "Ye all know it? Then ye all are border thieves and worse! No honest man knows that road! Lead on, Darya Khan, thou Lord of Rivers! Do thy duty as badragga and beware lest we get our knees wet at the fords! Ismail, you march next. Now I. You other two and the mule follow me.
In a steel box at Simla is a memorandum, made after his former visit to the place, to the effect that the entrance into Khinjan Caves might possibly be inside the mosque. Nobody had believed it likely, and he had not more than half favored it himself; but it is good, even when the next step may lead into a death-trap, to see one's first opinions confirmed.
He slew his own brother at night in the Khyber Pass. These men will say that he carried the head to Khinjan, and their word is true. I, Yasmini, saw. He used the head for a passport to obtain admittance. He proclaims a jihad! He urges invasion of India! He held up his brother's head before five thousand men and boasted of the murder.
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